Chapter 79: Building A World
I stared at the swirling earth essence, trying to figure out how exactly one goes about creating solid ground in a void.
In cultivation novels, it always seemed so simple - wave your hand and mountains rise from nothing. The protagonist just thinks about earth, and boom, instant continent.
The reality was... significantly more complicated.
My first attempt at creating soil resulted in what looked like brown smoke. The earth essence refused to coalesce, instead spreading out in wispy tendrils that dissipated into nothing. The second try wasn't much better – the essence clumped together in random chunks that looked more like floating asteroids than actual earth.
"Perhaps try focusing on a single type of material first?" Azure suggested after my fifth failure produced something that looked suspiciously like mud soup.
I dispersed the floating globs with a frustrated wave. "Right. Let's start with basic dirt. That should be simple enough."
It wasn't.
My next attempt created what could generously be called a dirt clod, if dirt clods were perfectly spherical and had the density of lead. The essence had condensed into a ball about the size of my fist that just hung there in the void, refusing to spread out or take any other shape.
"At least it's solid," I muttered. I reached out with my finger, and when I touched the floating sphere, ripples of essence spread from the contact point.